Custom stack: it goes to 11

I’m writing up my Shmoocon preso as a series of blogposts. Today I’m going to talk about custom network stacks.

The way network stacks work today is to let the kernel do all the heavy lifting. It starts with kernel drivers for Ethernet cards, which passes packets to the kernel’s TCP/IP stack. Upon the reception, the packet must make an arduous climb up the network stack until it finally escapes to user-mode. (User-mode is where applications run).

Software networks: commodity x86 vs. network processors

“when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer”

The website http://extremetech.com has a great graph showing how commodity Intel x86 processors have overtaken the world, first desktops in the 1980s, then the data center in the 1990s, then supercomputers in the 2000s. So what’s next for Intel to conquer?

There are two answers: mobile (phones, pads) and network appliances. You are probably aware of the first, with the battle raging with Windows8/Android on Intel “Atom” processors competing against ARM processors, but you might not have heard of the second fight.